Perhaps we all ought to sit in the dark and cold!

This past couple of weeks, the main energy companies have all been putting up their prices. A lot. Like 10-12%. This is despite making huge profits, and paying those at the top massive wages and bonuses.

And leaving their lights on - as was pictured in a couple of newspapers..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2471428/Lights-headquarters-Britains-largest-energy-firms-left-night.html

And the head honcho of one of them having a big country pile with heated swimming pool...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2467039/Sammy-Two-Pools-The-British-Gas-chief-plans-build-SECOND-swimming-pool-mansion-millions-families-struggle-pay-energy-bills.html

At least John Major, who I had assumed had gone to live out his retirement at Lords or the Oval, was willing to put his head above the parapet to complain about the injustice of it all. Although he probably doesn't need to worry about a 10% increase in the cost of his leccie....Nor I assume do the rest of the present government especially as presumably quite a lot of the cost of the energy they use comes from the public purse....

It's not just gas and electricity, look how the petrol price has stayed at over 130p for ages now. I think that it the Government adjusted the tax such that petrol was a stright £1 a litre, then this would reduce haulage costs, thus decrease the cost of goods in the shops, increase employment by increasing profitability and reducing costs for business, and give people money back in their pockets which could then feed back into the economy by increasing purchasing and investment. More employment means more tax receipts, more profits means more business tax paid and so on.

Little ways to save energy - 10 tips

1. Switch off lights when not in the room and use natural daylight as much as possible.
2. Switch off the cooker ring - if using electricity - before the end of cooking time, the residual heat will keep a pan boiling for several minutes afterwards.
3. Drive slower - I generally drive at 60mph and get average of 41.5mpg from a 2005 Renault Scenic - in a mixture of urban and motorway and A road driving.
4. Boil only what you need in the kettle. I have heard that it is more energy efficient to boil water in a kettle for vegetables than heat the water up on the hob, but this needs verifying.
5. Invest in a wind-up radio, you get exercise as well from all the winding!
6. Shut curtains at dusk - a lot of energy escapes through windows at night.
7. Put a jumper on rather than the heating when reasonable - obviously there comes a point where the heating needs to go on!
8. Laptops and tablets use less power than PCs
9. Share a bath! (You may do this anyway for reasons other than energy saving!)
10. Re-use heat - keep your toast warm by heating the plate up on top of the toaster, removing just before pop-up! Put plates in the oven to warm, do more than one dish in the oven, or do enough for 2 or 3 days in one go - e.g. Sunday + Monday plus a tub full for the freezer.

Autumn jobs - almost in the dark!

It is a good job I have got good eyesight in the dark! Even the local bats seem to want to stay close to streetlights (definitely Pipistrelle, and another larger species, fyi)

It is becoming a rush now to try and get things done in between coming home from work, having tea, picking the kids up and the sun going down, and frequently these past few days I have been trying to do work in almost darkness.

Still has to be done though, and for the record I have:

Finished digging over the potato patch - although I am sure a few will pop up next year as always
Dug over where the broad beans were
Planted winter onions in the former bean patch
Planted overwintering broad beans where the potatoes were
Watered - until today it has been very dry and the lettuces were suffering.
Weeded
Started to pick windfall apples, and there's still some late raspberries to pick

There;s still plenty to eat, courgettes, tomatoes, leeks coming, parsnips coming, lettuce, beetroot, broccoli, green beans and in store onions and potatoes, broad beans in the freezer, and plenty of jam made from damsons, strawberries, blackberries, blackcurrants and raspberries.

And baby carrots from the window boxes in the yard - high up on the wall away from the carrot flies and they are really sweet and free of black dots and holes that the flies create.

Next job is to pick and store apples and pears, though they are really quite late this year with only one or two windfalls so far (which are eatable) and the rest not seeming in any hurry to be pickable.

An experiment in peas

I read about how the Victorians used to grow things out of season by using hotbeds filled with manure, this gave off sufficient heat as it decomposed to keep plants warm and growing at times where normally they would suffer.

So, I thought I would give something a try. Unfortunately I don't have any horse manure at the moment, those Victorians had it in mountains in the days of horse drawn travelling! But I have plenty of compostable fruit and veg peelings and skins, as well as some guinea pig manure!

Into a wall-mounted tub goes some compost, followed by a deep layer of compostables, then a layer of compost on top for the peas to get stuck into while the decomposing gets going. The peas had been grown indoors and are about 3-4ins high right now.

Location is also important, our yard wall is in direct sunlight until about 2pm, and the corner where I have put the peas is the last to go into shade, but actually once the sun has gone round a bit, in late afternoon, that corner comes back into sunshine again (our house is east/west facing). The wall absorbs heat during the day and thus acts as a retainer, releasing heat back into the environment during the evening and night.

I put some twigs in for the peas to climb up, and we'll see what happens. I can always move them into the lean to greenhouse when the tomatoes have finished. Or put a clear plastic bag over them.

If I can get them to grow fast enough and we have a mild autumn we might well get peas this year. We'll see!

Blackberries

It's time to get thorns in your fingers and nettled as you strive to read the awkward blackberries that hide in the most awkward places!

The blackberries do seem to be doing well this year, perhaps the cold, long winter has done them good.

WARNING! If you happen to own a Blackberry, please do not try and make jam with it, it will invalidate the manufacturer's warranty, this is unless the manufacturer invalidates its own warranty by going bust first....

We freeze them until there's enough for jamming (which my wife does to Bob Marley on the Walkman...there's a link there I think...), so it is always as well to check for little caterpillars and spiders before doing so.

Once they've fruited they will get pruned right back, and any stray plants tamed or dug up.

My mum saw blackberries on sale in the supermarket the other day - is there seriously anyone out there that would consider buying blackberries, let alone for nearly £2 for a punnet! Have they not got a hedgerow or patch of waste ground near them or something, or have they become so brainwashed by the supermarkets that they don't even know that blackberries are all over the place and can be picked pretty much at will!

Tasks for August

It feels like all we need to do just now is pick and eat!

However, there's still a few things that need to happen to keep the allotment in good order:

1. Weed - some weeds are vaguely useful, for instance we let the poppies grow on as plenty of insects and bees like them.

Some are edible, I have tried Good King Henry but don't like it, however it may surprise you to know that I don't like a lot of salad plants either (others in the family do, as do the guinea pigs!).
I have made dandelion root coffee, and coffee made from the seeds of goose grass, both dried and roasted, crushed and infused. Acorn coffee's good as well, but no oak trees in the allotment!

2. Bordeaux mixture and other sprays - I spray the potatoes with Bordeaux mixture roughly once a fortnight from the end of June, to protect against blight. I use an organic garlic spray on the peas to keep pea moths away and prevent maggots. I have had to use Diphane on the black spot fungus on a pear and an apple tree, even though it's not organic, but I understand it is the only thing that gets rid of it.

3. Water - depending on the weather of course, July was very dry and I think even though they got plenty of watering the potatoes have suffered, and the onions aren't as big or as prolific as last year.

4. Put straw under courgettes, pumpkins and squashes, to protect them from the ground and getting nibbled.

5. I will possibly be putting some late beetroot and carrots in, and it will, by the end of the month be time to think about putting over wintering onion sets and some more broad beans in, as well as garlic.

Harvest time

Some of the vegetables we have been harvesting recently: